Butterflyfishes as Indicators of change

Sarah Curran Curran at altc.freeserve.co.uk
Wed May 23 11:50:22 EDT 2001


Hi Victor,

As I said I have yet to work the data up, but on general observations I
would say that if a correlation does exist between agonsitc respones and
coral habitat it will prove at this stage to be a weak one. I did find that
the redfins interacted with a large number of other reef fish, often for no
apparant food resource related reason. I would agree that the method in the
manual is not appropriate for use as monitoring of coral habitat degradation
as the effects on these sorts of behaviour are likely to be much more
complex, and the sample size that is involved in this sort of monitoring
(using behaviour) are likely to be outside most low key monitoring
programmes. There are too many factors that are apparant in the field to
alter/effect agonistic/submissive responses.

On a related note, perhaps you and others may be interested in some
behaviour we recorded whilst studying feeding rates; any comments much
appreciated.The feeding study did turn up some interesting things such as in
heavily silted sites redfins were observed several times clearly "blowing"
silt from corals
before eating....I haven't found this in the literature, perhaps I just
haven't looked hard enough though. In the same heavily degraded sites they
took nips from corraline algae in areas where there was very little live
coral available (my own observations, not analysed). At one
site that was dominated by tubastrea
they spent large amounts of time clearly nipping at the tubastrea in
preference to available porites colonies close to them. In all our samples
from this site I'd say more than 60% of the time was spent on Tubastrea. Can
anyone shed light on this for me?

I am away in the field from Early June and will get only infrequent email
access so am off the list for a while. Can anyone who has comments or takes
this discussion further please send to my email address too...Cheers
I would be interested to hear if anyone else has tried to use the manual in
the field and how useful they found it.

Sarah


----- Original Message -----
From: Gomelyuk, Victor <victor.gomelyuk at PLMBAY.PWCNT.NT.GOV.AU>
To: Sarah Curran <Curran at altc.freeserve.co.uk>
Sent: 20 May 2001 09:04
Subject: RE: Butterflyfishes as Indicators of change


> Dear Sarah,
>
> Thank you so much for your respond. I am interested in:
>
>   3.The incidence/rate of aggressive/submissive interactions of Ch.
> Trifasciatus (intra and inter specific) and correlations with reef habitat
>
> You see, abundance and species is obviously very reliable indices for
coral
> environment monitoring. As for behaviour (feeding and agonistic
(aggressive)
> interactions... You see, I have ethological background ~ 10 years of
> agonistic and feeding behaviour studies and I'm pretty aware that feeding
> and agonistic behaviour can be affected by variety of external/internal
> factors from fish physiological condition to presence of territorial
> competitors (both inter- and intraspecific). What is important - these
> changes occur in  very stable environment. Aquarium experiments proved
that.
> And still in the "Manual..." it is suggested that changes in
> feeding/aggressive behaviour are triggered  mainly by changes in coral
> polyps condition. I am afraid it's a bit too simple. It is possible to
> measure fish behaviour in the field, but it is extremely difficult task
due
> to the high variability. Particularly statistical differences assessment.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Victor Gomelyuk
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Sarah Curran [SMTP:Curran at altc.freeserve.co.uk]
> > Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2001 5:43 AM
> > To: Gomelyuk, Victor
> > Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > Subject: Re: Butterflyfishes as Indicators of change
> >
> > Dear Victor ,
> >
> > Myself and several honours students tested some of the methods in this
> > manual in Sulawesi.
> > We had four main focus areas for the studies (in brief)
> > 1. Correlating rates of feeding and reef habitat (Ch.
> > trifasciatus-redfins)
> > 2. Which (if any) provided a closer correlation with habitat; using
total
> > number of chaetodonts along transects (abundance and species) or
selected
> > obligate corralivores
> > 3.The incidence/rate of aggressive/submissive interactions of Ch.
> > Trifasciatus (intra and inter specific) and correlations with reef
habitat
> > 4.Investigating habitat preferences in pristine and degraded habitats
> > (Redfins)
> >
> > The data is still being worked up. What particular aspect are you
> > interested
> > in?
> >
> > Sarah
> >
> >
> > Sarah Curran
> > Science Co-ordinator
> > Operation Wallacea
> > Priory Lodge
> > Spilsby
> > Lincolnshire
> > PE23 4BP
> > UK
> > Work email: science at opwall.com
> > Home email: curran at altc.freeserve.co.uk
> > Mob:07714 305528
> > Website: www.opwall.com
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Gomelyuk, Victor <victor.gomelyuk at PLMBAY.PWCNT.NT.GOV.AU>
> > To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Sent: 19 May 2001 10:47
> > Subject: RE: Butterflyfishes as Indicators of change
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Dear Colleagues,
> > >
> > > I would like to find if anyone is using Butterflyfishes as Indicators
of
> > > coral reefs conditions?:
> > > Re: Crosby, M.P. and E.S.Reese. 1996 A Manual for Monitoring Coral
Reefs
> > > With Indicator Species: Butterflyfishes as Indicators  of Change on
Indo
> > > Pacific Reefs. Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, NOAA,
> > Silver
> > > Spring, MD. 45 pp.
> > >
> > > Your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
> > >
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Dr Victor E. Gomelyuk
> > > Marine Scientist
> > > Cobourg Marine Park
> > > PO Box 496 PALMERSTON NT 0831 AUSTRALIA
> > > phone 61 (08) 8979 0244
> > > FAX 61 (08) 8979 0246
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~
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> > > digests, please visit www.coral.noaa.gov, click on Popular on the
> > > menu bar, then click on Coral-List Listserver.
> > >
> > >
> >
>

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